A view from my front door. The ‘disturbance’ in this idyllic picture is caused by the fence that surrounds the primary school and its play grounds. A fortune is invested in school security in this country. Wonder if it’s really necessarily here in the village where the crime rate is relatively low (lower than in the average European or American city!!!). And yes, indeed, Stanford is very unlike Cape Town (if you believe in statistics -?- globally with highest murder rate outside war zones) where the majority of people live in shacks and in poverty (but that’s what you don’t read in the travel guides).

Most crime in South Africa is committed within poorer communities and is merely related to alcohol and drug addiction. Another statistic figure (I see statistics as a kind of indicator): 30 percent of South Africans (of all walks of life) is addicted to one or another …